Rural scholarships aim to boost dental care in underserved areas

First-year dentistry student Kyle Neely already had been thinking about opening a private practice one day in his “old stomping grounds” of Star, but the prospect of student loans was a major cause for concern.

Earlier this year, the Mississippi Legislature approved the scholarship program after three years of effort by Dr. Mark Donald, a dentist in Louisville, the Mississippi Dental Association and Dr. Gary Reeves, dean of the School of Dentistry.

The program, modeled after the 5-year-old Rural Physicians Scholarship, is aimed at supporting dentistry students who intend to return to their roots across the state to practice after graduating. The first scholarships of $35,000 per year were awarded to Neely, third-year student Suzanne Chance and fourth-year student Lynsey Giachelli this fall.

"The Rural Dentists Scholarship Program has been viewed by our Mississippi Legislature as a very beneficial provision in our state," said Donald, a 1988 graduate of the School of Dentistry and past president of the MDA. "Our legislators understand the challenges associated with meeting health-care needs in our rural communities. They passed the bill to establish the program and provided funding to provide scholarships in the very first year.

He said they are looking to get three more scholarships funded in the coming year.

"There are a lot of underserved areas in Mississippi that don't have access to health care and dental care," said Dr. Wilhelmina O'Reilly, professor of pediatric dentistry and community oral health and assistant dean for admissions and student affairs. "These scholarships provided by the Mississippi Legislature will serve to remedy that problem by helping us recruit quality students from these areas or students who will go back and provide excellent dental care to these areas."

The first recipients all hail from rural parts of the state and plan on making their careers there.

"I was going to go back to the Delta regardless of whether I got this or not, but this was just an incentive to go back anyway," said Giachelli, who grew up in Indianola. "I'm getting rewarded to go back to my home town, to the people and the places that I love."